Some lessons to be learnt

 The last two years have been really tough for all of us. We have been challenged as a species by a little virus that has turned our world upside down. This is the journey of a common man during one of the most difficult phases in the modern history. All of us have suffered as the virus swept across continents. However, we have our individual tales of trials and tribulations that merge in the mammoth river of collective miseries.

Millennium after millennium we have fought against real animals in the forests and later against our imagined enemies larger than any animal on earth to make bigger and bigger weapons, wasting our precious resources in its wake. The chink in the armor is glaring now: Our unpreparedness to fight against the ‘small’. Corona teaches us a bitter lesson.

Is there any solution? Of course there is: Instead of pushing the stage of creation into a corner, from where it decides to launch a fusillade through nano-arrows, learn to balance things in all walks of life. Don’t push nature too far into a corner. It always has the option to hit back. It may not be able to hit tangibly in the form of a dinosaur, it can but surely do the same through invisible Corona and many more.

There is a reason why we have pushed mother earth too far into the corner. It’s our intra-Homo sapiens rivalry. Earlier we fought as the weak Homo sapiens who had to band together against physically far superior species. Now those threats are gone. So drop your weapons my dear ever-scared jungle man. We are almost biologically molded to keep fighting now after millions of years of fear and insecurity. Saving other remaining species from extinction is important, but far more important is to stop the virtual fear driven animosity among nations build upon false assumptions of ideologies, faiths and beliefs.

All that is needed is a collective feeling of Homo sapiens. When our ancestors set out from Africa 60,000 years ago, they could overpower far superior enemies in the battle of survival. Now we stand at the crossroads again. The enemy now is invisible. It will manifest through nano-particles and other imbalance-born outbursts of mother earth. Fight as a band. Fight as a species and as a globalist. Sow the seeds of love and trust among all nations.

All the divisions are man created. We can easily remove these. Love for our fellow human beings will sow the seeds of love for this little planet, our house. Don’t try to land on the Sun; try to use the precious resources where in the case of health emergencies our best cities in the world don’t bear the insult of the doctors and nurses fighting without even proper masks. A ballistic missile worth millions of dollars rusting in a bunker and a life savior doctor fighting Corona without the PPEs! See, what have we turned this world into! Isn’t it that we end up wearing our slippers on the head as a kind of the crown of fools?

The agricultural revolution allowed we humans to keep larger populations under worse conditions. Industrial revolution took it still further by allowing more and more people under still worse conditions. In the last couple of centuries we have further moved on. Presently, around 8 billion people are kept alive under worse conditions than ever in history. The tiny minority of economically well off people have utilities, but they have huge load of emotional suffering. This generation is the worst suffering in our entire history.

Why is it getting worse with each generation? Why is it that the current generation suffers more than the previous one? We are caught in a vicious circle. We have been committing the mistake of taking the things of utilities as the currency of life, living, happiness and joy. No, they aren't! We have to break this malafide linkage of the items of utility to happiness and joy in life. This grotesque monetization of the meaning of life in terms of the items of utility needs to done away with. The things which should have been under our feet, we have put them on our heads as crowns. No wonder, we are loaded to the limits and tottering on the path. Life and living is mere struggle.

Throw down the load of utilities from your mind. Walk over them. Use them. Treat them like your slaves, not vice versa. You know what, how funny it appears? It appears like we are carrying our slippers on our head, taking it to be a shiny crown. It's better we put on our slippers on our feet, a place where they need to be, not on our heads. The utilities off the head and you have a confident human going on her journey, the head occupied with better ideas and the heart full of sweet songs.

Corona stole many a smile from us. There were individual pains swaddled in collective miseries. But then we have to walk through the fog to reach the sunny slopes. And we did. Many of us fell on the way. It’s in remembrance of those who couldn’t make it. It’s also for those who went on to make it to the end of the tunnel. These chronicles are in celebration of life and living amidst all the testing and teasing pulls of fate and circumstances.